Horacio Quiroga s short stories are infused with the themes of life and death that so obsessed him. They span many fiction genresjungle tale, Gothic horror story, psychological study, morality taleand possess a universality that has made him a classic Latin American writer."

Tales of horror, madness, and death, tales of fantasy and morality: these are the works of South American master storyteller Horacio Quiroga. Author of some 200 pieces of fiction that have been compared to the works of Poe, Kipling, and Jack London, Quiroga experienced a life that surpassed in morbidity and horror many of the inventions of his fevered mind. As a young man, he suffered his father's accidental death and the suicide of his beloved stepfather. As a teenager, he shot and accidentally killed one of his closest friends. Seemingly cursed in love, he lost his first wife to suicide...